Measurement of Beauty

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Helen of Troy (from the Iliad) is widely known as "the face that launched a thousand ships." Thus, 1 millihelen is the amount of beautyneeded to launch a single ship.

According to The Rebel Angels, a novel by Robertson Davies, this system was invented by Cambridge mathematician W.A.H. Rushton. However, the term was possibly first suggested by Isaac Asimov.^[9] The obvious reference is Marlowe's line from the play The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus, "Was this the face that launched a thousand ships...?" ^[10]

Negative values have also been observed—these, of course, are measured by the number of ships sunk or the number of clocks stopped. An alternative interpretation of 1 negative Helen is the amount of negative beauty (i.e. ugliness) that can launch one thousand ships the other way.

Since the original quotation was "Was this the face that launch'd a thousand ships and burnt the topless towers of Ilium", a more accurate definition of the millihelen might be the amount of beauty required to launch a single ship and ignite a wastebasket.

David Lance Goines has written a humorous article^[11] describing various Helen-units. It has a chart with the fire-lighting and ship-launching capability for different powers of "Helens". For example, a Picohelen (ph) (10^-12 helens) indicates the amount of beauty that can "Barbecue a couple of Steaks & Toss an Inner Tube Into the Pool".

Thomas Fink, in The Man's Book^[12] defines beauty both in terms of ships launched, but also in terms of the number of women one women will, on average, be more beautiful. One Helen (H) is the quantity of beauty to be more beautiful than 50 million women, the number of women estimated to have been alive in the 12th century BC. Ten Helena (Ha) is the beauty sufficient for one oarsmen (of which 50 are on a ship) to risk his life, or be the most beautiful of a thousand women. Beauty is logarithmic on a base of 2. For beauty to increase by 1 Ha, a woman must be the most beautiful of twice as many women. One Helen is 25.6 Ha. The most beautiful woman which ever lived would score 34.2 Ha, and 1.34 H, the pick of a dozen women would be 3.6 Ha, and 0.14 H.